October 2014

J-School

October 19, 2011

NOTE: On Friday, Oct. 14, SAJA & Columbia Journalism School hosted Imran Khan, Pakistani politician, cricket legend, Chancellor of the University of Bradford (UK) and author of a new book, "Pakistan: A Personal History," in conversation with Bobby Ghosh, World editor of Time. This is one of several SAJAforum reports on the event.

By Jasmeet Sidhu (@JasmeetSidhu), a student at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Photograph by Ted Regencia (@tedregencia), also a student at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

When Imran Khan, legendary cricketer and now politician in Pakistan, first entered the room for his talk sponsored by the South Asian Journalists Association at Columbia Journalism School Friday night, a crowd of eager and giddy men and women swarmed him, pulling out iPhones, Blackberries, and whatever else picture-taking devices they had on hand.

The adoration is a strange sight for those uninitiated to the cult of Khan, especially given the fact that he is a politician in a politically troubled land.

But Khan of course, is not just a politician. While observing normally serious journalists, lawyers, and activists turn into exhilarated fans, it is clear that Khan is a larger than life force, a strange mix of a sports star, political visionary, intellect and celebrity, the likes of which are unprecedented even in the Western world.

In New York City promoting his new book, "Pakistan: A Personal History," Khan spoke to the packed crowd on such heavy topics as the war on terror, corruption and tribalism in Pakistan, and the prospects of his political party in the next election in his country. He was interviewed on stage by Bobby Ghosh, World Editor of Time.

And while many present were eager to probe him on issues like the blasphemy law and Pakistan's relations with India, others were simply satisfied to see their childhood hero in the flesh.

"We're all very giddy," explained Ammara Afzaal, 21, a student at New York University. "We signed up immediately when we heard about the event."

"We both felt very unreal here," said an ecstatic Fatima Khan, 20, who grew up admiring Khan in her household.

This dichotomy continued throughout the evening: a sincere, and sometimes tense discussion about the future of Pakistan and its politics, intermixed with adulation from a crowd that pulsed with excitement, and snapped photos every few minutes.

The fandom reached an apex at the very end, when Khan, who barely finished his last sentence, was swarmed by a crush of admirers seeking an elusive photograph with him. The intensity of the crowd even caused Columbia professor Sree Sreenivasan, the host of the evening, to appeal to the crowd, "Please let him go down the center aisle (to exit). Please!"

Khan, surrounded by handlers that helped move him through the crowd, appeared unfazed at the reaction that he was getting, clearly used to his celebrity.

Though the night's event touched on several issues facing Pakistan, one has to wonder whether Khan's status as a legendary cricketer distracted from a more serious conversation about Pakistan's future that night.

As Omar Akhtar, a Masters student at the Columbia Journalism School, tweeted: "We lost a great opportunity to ask Imran Khan some tough questions."

October 15, 2011

NOTE: On Friday, Oct. 14, SAJA & the Columbia Journalism School hosted Imran Khan, Pakistani politician, cricket legend, Chancellor of the University of Bradford (UK) and author of a new book, "Pakistan: A Personal History," in conversation with TIME's Bobby Ghosh. This is one of several SAJAforum reports on the event.

By Hiten Samtani (@HitSamty), a student at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Additional reporting by Suhrith Parthasarathy (@suhrith) and photographs by Purvi Thacker (@purvi21), both of Columbia J-School.

Cricket legend and Pakistani prime minister hopeful Imran Khan spoke about his party's vision for Pakistan, the country's need for rule of law, and the implications of the War on Terror to a standing room only crowd at the Columbia Journalism School on Friday evening. In conversation with Bobby Ghosh, World Editor of TIME, Khan showcased his trademark swagger and charisma, but sidestepped tough questions in what was a crowd-pleasing but ultimately unfulfilling talk.

Ghosh gave the audience a lesson on how to do a refreshing introduction of a public figure; he mentioned Khan’s book, “Pakistan: A Personal History,” and said he felt “a twinge of sadness” that he could no longer see Khan as simply the heroic sporting icon of his youth. Ghosh asked Khan about a statement in the book in which Khan says that he could always see an opponent in his grasp on the field, and that he had now begun to feel the same way about politics. “The opponents are on the mat and they won’t be able to get up,” said Khan, with a touch of arrogance and his familiar thrusting palm gesture. “The public wants change and they want PTI,” he said, referring to the upcoming elections and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party.

Khan said he wrote “Pakistan: A Personal History” for the youth of the country. “Never have I seen them so confused, about secularism, Islam, etc., ” he said. “There needs to be a direction.” Khan drew zealous applause from the crowd when he said that the one positive thing Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari had done is that “he had exposed all the political forces in the country, by buying them.” Khan hailed the vibrant independent media in Pakistan as vital to promoting Pakistani interests, rather than those of the politicians. When Ghosh asked him about the Arab Spring and why there was no parallel in Pakistan, Khan said that the 2007 “Lawyers’ Movement was the Pakistani version of the Arab Spring, but it was hijacked.”

The discussion moved on to the U.S.-led "War on Terror," a phenomenon that Khan said was the other reason he wrote the book. Khan--in a statement that will likely thrill Republicans--said “people don’t use guns just because they carry guns,” referring to the “million armed men from the tribal areas. You win the war when you win the people’s hearts and minds,” he said. “The Pakistani government should have asked the men from the tribal areas to isolate al-Qaida right in the beginning.” Instead, Khan said, “Musharraf made a blunder; under pressure from America, he sent the army into the tribal areas in 2004.” This was, Khan said, “an insane and immoral way to war, with artillery, F-16s, and helicopter gunships bombing villages. As a result, thousands have died, more than 3.5 million have been internally displaced, and the economy has lost $70 billion, compared to the $15 billion in foreign aid we received.” He also said that these were the reasons why “80 percent of Pakistanis perceive the U.S. as a bigger enemy than India.”

Khan took a stand against U.S. aid to Pakistan, saying, “if you do not respect yourself, no one will respect you.” He insisted that the Pakistani economy was “not poor, just mismanaged,” and drew a comparison to the election patterns in the country, stating that “35 million people were unregistered to vote, and 37 million votes out of the total 80 million cast were bogus.” He promised that his party would root out this type of corruption and establish a robust and independent justice system.

The talk was organized by the South Asian Journalists Association, and Khan’s cricketing and philanthropic appeal had drawn a large number of Indians. The conversation moved towards India-Pakistan relations. “Does India represent an existential threat?” Ghosh asked, and Khan said, “No. But it’s in the military genes, and hence the army has played a disproportionate role.” Khan said that relations between the two countries would remain fragile “unless we are confident that our intelligence agencies will not play a part in cross-border violence. One act like Mumbai will bring us back to square one.” When asked how India and Pakistan--countries that began in such similar circumstances--had taken such different trajectories, Khan said “Jawaharlal Nehru embedded democracy in India, while we (Pakistan) lost our only great leader (Mohammad Ali Jinnah).” Khan also referred to the East Pakistan crisis (which led to the eventual creation of Bangladesh in 1971) and cited these incidents as reasons why “our democracy never took off.” When asked by an audience member about Track II diplomacy and the difficulty of cross-border travel, Khan diverted the conversation to a more entertaining but less difficult answer about a cricket series in 2005.

Khan was then asked about whether he would repeal the blasphemy law, which erupted into controversy following the January 2011 assassination of Salman Taseer, Governor of Punjab, who spoke out against abuse of the law. “I was the only politician to side with Taseer,” Khan said. He then went on to give a history of the blasphemy law, and condemned the death of rational dialogue in Pakistan. But he did not definitively answer the question of whether he would repeal the law.

When asked about politics, religion, and the rural people of Pakistan, Khan said that people in rural areas tend to be more politicized, because their “lives depend on it. But they were petrified that they’d be on the wrong side, and so they would go with the powerful criminals.”

In the most insightful exchange of the night, Khan said that rural people do not think about the secularism issue, and that it was a topic more often heard “at dinner parties in Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi." In response to an audience member’s question about extremism in the tribal areas, Khan said that collateral damage from this war is what created the Pakistani Taliban. “If someone killed my family, I could become a suicide bomber,” he declared. He assured the audience that a robust rule of law would be a core mandate of his party’s time in office, but did not offer any specific policies towards this goal, other than insisting that the War on Terror had to end.

There were the inevitable questions about cricket, notably about the spot-fixing scandal. Khan fielded these with aplomb, and obliged a few of the swarm of supporters eager for a handshake and a photo op. But while he showed an acute understanding of his people and his desired place in their history, tonight, even with Ghosh and others pressing him, there was little straight talk about Imran Khan’s strategies to fix Pakistan.

May 25, 2009

While many of my friends are getting their diplomas and moving into the real world this spring, I’m taking the scenic route to graduation – pinning on an extra semester that allows time for a Gainesville Sun newspaper internship, journalism trip to Brazil, volunteer work in north Indian villages, and some extra multimedia classes.

“Oh, you’re such a free spirit,” my mom’s friends tell me as they nudge their children toward law school or MCAT classes.

But my sense of adventure might have something to do with the fact that finding a job has me shaking in my hiking boots.

The other day I looked up from my elliptical to the gym TV to see a headline that read “Worst year to graduate ever?” Soothing.

It’s not just the news, or the demise of the Boston Globe, CosmoGirl or Oprah Home. It’s also the journalism conferences where even lighthearted, successful columnists like Dave Barry have given budding writers the yellow light.

Professors in j-schools around the country are arming students with “backpack journalism” skills like video editing, RSS-savvy writing and Web design, but telling us to be open to PR and advertising.

My mother, who still makes me open up Word or upload photos for her, is pushing me to become more technical. Basically, a computer programmer who might have a couple story ideas too.

June 20, 2008

When a tip came in about the opening of a large Hindu temple in Lilburn, Georgia, reporter Rahul Bali was
the obvious choice in his radio station to cover the opening.

“They
needed someone to bridge the gap,” he said. “I had to report, but also to
educate.”

His Indian
background also played to his favor when he traveled through African-American
neighborhoods in Atlanta. Bali was seen as an unbiased observer since he wasn't identified as either a member of the black or white communities.

Although no longer in the South, Bali continues to be the only
person of Indian origin at his current radio station, WTOP in the D.C. Metro area, where he is often assigned to topics with a multicultural element. After the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks,he helped to inform a curious public about the Islamic society in America.

As was the case in Bali's radio stations, much of the journalism world does not reflect the growing diversity of the population. And cuts to newsroom budgets are making the situation worse.

July 21, 2006

SAJA students and other members got the lowdown on what it takes to get noticed by recruiters at Saturday's workshop, "Resumes, cover letters and making the right connections." Mariecar Frias of ABC News, Jane Light of Reuters and Pat Thompson of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel gave attendees tips for working their way up the media ladder:

July 15, 2006

Adithya Sambamurthy is starting j-school at Berkeley next month, but until recently, he was snapping photos at the World Cup. For Sambamurthy, who’s spent more than half his life in Germany, it was an event he did not want to miss. Although he’s covered college athletics and Major League Baseball in the past, the German in him defers to soccer. In his own words, “few things compare in magnitude to the FIFA World Cup.” He originally planned to send some of his soccer shots to his former employer in the US, but when that didn’t work out, the innovative Sambamurthy was still able to freelance for some local German papers.

Seshu Badrinath of Tiffinbox says the young photographer is both “talented and enterprising.” Last September, Badrinath featured Sambamurthy’s work in India on his blog.

Sambamurthy made his way to India to work on a “self-assigned documentary project.” What did he learn while on the job in there? “…who you know is more important than what you know.” On Tiffinbox he shares the first few pictures that he took in India. He claims that in these initial photos he was “…hesitant about really getting in close…the pictures on the site lack a sense of intimacy, as I [was] still trying to find that connection with my subjects.” Yet, his pictures still effectively capture and portray the color and emotion of everyday movement in India.

July 14, 2006

Vasugi Ganeshananthan(she goes by Sugi) will be joining Columbia University's M.A. program in journalism program this Fall, where her focus will be Arts and Culture. Ganeshananthan's foray with journalism began during her undergraduate days, when she was a managing editor for the Harvard Crimson.

"Harvard doesn't have offer a journalism major," she quips, "so if you're interested in journalism you basically major in the Crimson." "I was an English major but I wasn't known for being in class much," she jokes.

After an internship with the Wall Street Journal, Sugi's career progressed in two directions - journalism
and creative writing. She worked for the Atlantic Monthly for a year,
after which she attended the University of Iowa's Writer's Workshop
where she completed her M.F.A. Following that, she was the Writer in
Residence at Exeter Academy in New Hampshire.

Sugi, who is of Sri Lankan origin, is currently working on two
historical fiction novels, both set in Sri Lanka. Although she has not
spent more than six weeks in total in Sri Lanka, she has been able to
use her friends and family as resources for her writing.

July 11, 2006

After graduating from Amherst College, Sonia Narang returned home to Denver, and found herself unemployed and living with the parents. “I took the first job I could get, which was a reporting gig for a weekly newspaper, where I wrote rousing stories about moose sightings in suburban yards and Girl Scout cookie sales.”

Mostly, Narang enjoyed the fact that she was constantly on the move and not stuck to an 8-hour-a-day desk job. After a few years at the paper, called the “Lone Tree Voice,” circulation 6,000, it was time for a change of pace.

July 10, 2006

Ambreen Ali was bred to be a businesswoman, not a journalist. After graduating from college with a degree in finance, Ali took a family trip to Lahore. It was there, while standing on her uncle’s balcony, that she decided her heart lay far outside of business.

She’s worked in the non-profit sector ever since, in communications, and as an editor for a non-profit journal. She spent three months in Pakistan, where she worked for The Citizen’s Foundation and interviewed students and teachers about the effectiveness of the foundation’s education program for Pakistan’s poorest.